Extravagance at the Waldorf Astoria in Berlin

The bedroom of the Ambassador Suite at the Waldorf Astoria. Courtesy The Waldorf Astoria

Ascending elegantly over the U-bahn station Zoologischer Garten, the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church and the Berlin Zoo – where the hotel sponsors a giraffe – the Waldorf Astoria occupies the first to fifteenth and thirty-first floors of the 118-metre Zoofenster tower. From the Tegel airport bus it is easy to find, even by accident.

You are welcomed by the hotel’s Wall of Fame, a gilded, mirror-panelled wall covered in the John Hancocks of the itinerant celebrities – including Aerosmith and the centre-right femme fatale Carla Bruni-Sarkozy – who have made the Astoria their temporary homes.

Check-in is quick, but, having failed to announce an arrival time in advance, I find the room is not ready. The front-of-house manager greets me warmly. We’ll clean quickly, I’m promised. They do.

Our room is hewn from marble, it seems. The bath is enormous, complemented by a shower-turned-wetroom, and a television inlaid into the mirror. I fantasise about being sufficiently busy to need to watch BBC News while I wash. The bathroom’s centrepiece is an illuminated marble carving, inspired by peacock plumes – a recurring design motif in the hotel.

The window, on the fourteenth floor, boasts absurdly beautiful views of Berlin: the Tiergarten, a mass of forest and foliage in Berlin’s Mitte – literally, Middle – district.

The bed is large and welcoming. After my sleepless night-time flight from Abu Dhabi, collapsing into it rises to the top of my list of things to do. I succumb; I am welcomed.

The restaurants are superlative. Breakfast is a smorgasbord of smoked meats and cheeses, and dinner is a fit subject for an ode. The (Fritz) Lang Bar serves live jazz and sophisticated fare in glorious 1930s art deco saloon, while the Romanisches Cafe, built on a famous site for poets and artists levelled by the RAF one night in 1943, serves as an elegant spot for reclining and reading, even if it no longer a home to Weimar-era Bohemians.

The hotel boasts a spa with treatments ranging from the decadent to the science-fictional, and a 15th-floor library offers spectacular views.

The one downside: Wi-Fi costs €12 per day. Although, in fairness, the TV also has internet.

Q&A: Les Solistes by Pierre Gagnaire

Describe the scene

Les Solistes’ decor is inauspicious – tasteful modernism, but nothing radical – though its reputation is daunting. Pierre Gagnaire, the winner of three Michelin stars, added this restaurant to his portfolio last year. Mr Gagnaire also runs Reflets in Dubai’s Festival City InterCon.

And what of the food?

For €150, you are served a six-course meal. Good food should make one thoughtful – or so I have insisted to bemused companions.

What did you have to eat?

Many dishes. Tiny, sophisticated amuse bouches that packed complex flavours into miniature morsels. Radish in goat’s cheese. Curried butter with smoked salt, paired with a selection of imported breads. Borscht with new potato ice cream, cubes of horseradish and cucumber. Watermelon summer salad with apricot sorbet and olive film. A tandoori pastry stick in cauliflower cream. Pigeon breast, leg of pigeon, and praline of pigeon heart and liver. Sea bass with a tomato salad made from three tomato varieties plus tomato foam. A breaded lobster meatball in lobster mayonnaise. The flavours were wonderfully precise. Service was superlative – the waiters told stories of the dishes’ invariably colourful and complex histories.

And dessert?

It was not a single dish, but many. A patter of pettit fours, followed by apricot and violet coulis with cracked cocoa beans. Raspberry tart with basil sorbet. Ice cream with a biscuit ring and yellow and green peppers. (By this time I was close to tears.) Coffee-flavoured tiers of mascapone and meringue tiers. And chocolate parfait. Espresso to finish.

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